Back in the mid-80s, the idea of transferring funds, checking your email, buying stocks and booking a trip online was all a faraway dream. But if you happened to be in France at the time, you might've already been wired up and doing these things for years -- thanks to the state-subsidized Minitels that were in each and every household. The country was far more interconnected than any other and proud of the text-only terminals, even though government-owned France Telecom monopolized access and you had to be newspaper company to supply any c
